Tonight he was dressed in the MacLean tartan with a loose linen shirt. His jet-black hair was tied back in a queue. Other times he wore a different style of dress—silk jackets, shirts with lace collars and cuffs, brocade waistcoats with brass buttons, and often a curly black wig on his head. It was part of his dual identity. Part of his disguise.
Sometimes, in the eyes of the English, he was a gentleman.
Other times, a savage.
What was he tonight? Angus wondered uneasily. A little of both, he supposed.
“I’m surprised you let me pass through the gates after what I did to you two years ago,” Angus said, sitting up to meet Duncan’s blue-eyed gaze. “You have every right to hate me. I know that. I should burn in hell for what I did to you.”
He had told the English soldiers exactly where to find the Butcher, and as a result, Duncan had been captured, beaten, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. He would not be alive today if not for the courage of his English wife who risked everything to save him.
And today, that same flame-haired woman had nursed Angus gently and tenderly. Sometimes he was astounded by the charity and forgiveness of the human heart. His own especially—for he had never imagined he had much of one to begin with. Yet he was feeling a deep, profound pain in that area tonight. He regretted his past actions, his disloyalty and treachery, and he longed for the woman he loved, even when he doubted her integrity.
“Aye,” Duncan said. “You were a bastard and a tyrant two years ago. I ought to shoot you through the heart right now.”
“Most men would do that very thing, in your position.”
A moment of tense silence ensued while Angus wondered anxiously if Duncan was hiding a pistol in the room. How he must have dreamed of this moment, when he was lying in that prison cell, knowing he had been betrayed by his most trusted friend…
Duncan tipped back his glass of whisky and finished it. “I have a bottle of my finest over there,” he said, tossing his head toward the table by the fire. “You ought to take some. It might ease the furor in your gut.”
Angus scoffed. “I don’t think there’s any drink in existence that can accomplish that.”
“But it’s the finest whisky around.” Duncan leaned back. “You need to relax, Angus. I read your letter. I remember the pressures we were both under two years ago. They were hard times.”
Duncan rose to his feet, poured a drink, and carried it across the room. Angus sat up in bed to accept it.
“All I wanted was to see Richard Bennett’s head on a spike.”
Bennett was the English officer who had raped and murdered his sister, and Angus understood now that he had been so consumed by grief and rage, he had become obsessed to the point of madness. When Duncan had decided to let Bennett live, Angus had lost his mind.
“But I was wrong to do what I did,” Angus said, “and I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to do the same thing to me now.”
Duncan’s broad shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “I might not have let you in here two years ago, but time has a way of tempering one’s rage and healing old wounds. And when you find a way to live that makes you happy, it gets easier to let go of the things that once tormented you.”
Angus nodded. “I have begun to see that for myself. Ever since I returned to Kinloch, I’ve thought of other things besides the past. I took a wife, and for a short time, I thought God might be giving me a second chance.”
“But let me guess. You don’t think so now,” Duncan put forward, “because of what just happened to you. When you collapsed this morning, you told us that your wife poisoned you. That’s hard to swallow.”
Angus finished his drink and set it on the table, then tossed the covers aside and swung his legs to the floor. “Aye.”
“Do you truly believe she wanted you dead?”
Needing to test his strength, he stood up and went to refill his glass from the decanter by the fire. “I don’t know. It kills me to think it, but it also kills me to think that if she is innocent, I’ve left her behind.”
Duncan watched Angus return to the bed. “I cannot tell you one way or another if your wife is innocent. I don’t know what’s in her mind, but I can tell you what I know of the MacEwens—for I’ve had spies at Kinloch ever since they invaded and killed your father two years ago.”
Angus nearly fell over. “Are you jesting?”
“Nay, I’m completely serious.”
“Do you have spies there now? And how did I not know this? Who are these watchers?”
Duncan shook his head. “I can’t reveal that, but don’t worry, they’re on your side. It’s the MacEwens I like to keep an eye on. After your father’s death, I needed to know what to expect from my new neighbors. And I learned a few things you ought to know.”
“Such as?”
“Sit down, and I’ll tell you about your late father-in-law’s politics.”
